


aurora daybreak

by stellalunar



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Early Mornings, Han Jisung | Han is a Sweetheart, Lee Minho | Lee Know is Whipped, M/M, but they're kinda slightly more bearable if he gets to see jisung relaxed for once, minho hates mornings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 03:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20901155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellalunar/pseuds/stellalunar
Summary: minho despises waking up earlier than he has to.but today, maybe minho doesn't mind all too much. for jisung, maybe minho will make an exception.





	aurora daybreak

minho despises waking up earlier than he has to.

granted, minho despises waking up even when he has to, but the hatred only intensifies when he wakes up and sun's only just risen and he still has a full hour left before he needs to wake up. 

it's deadly silent, an odd occurrence in their dorms. with nine boys, half of whom are still teenagers, living together, the dorm barely ever gets a completely quiet spot. someone's yelling because someone else stole their socks, someone else is yelling because the food burned, and someone entirely new and uninvolved in either situation will yell for the first two to shut up. 

hyunjin, changbin, seungmin. specifically in that order. 

the sun is bleeding pink and gold into the clouds when minho turns his head the slightest bit, tinting the sky pastel colors and bringing a soft edge to the world minho barely gets to see. in a world like theirs, everything is so sharp cut that a rounded edge is hard to find, even in between. 

minho only registers the arm resting on his chest when he moves to sit up, and he freezes when he realizes there's added weight on his chest. he turns, just slightly so, to his other side. 

it's seven in the morning when minho realizes jisung must have crawled into his bed at some point last night when he'd gotten home from the studio. while it's stopped happening too often any more, with jisung barely even coming home at night, minho never questions why. 

he knows why. he knows, because he'd returned late one night and the darkness had been so suffocating that he'd barely been able to fall asleep himself. 

minho removes jisung's hand from on top of his chest gently and sits up slightly, propping himself up on an elbow. 

seeing jisung like this is rare. his hair's splayed out in a dark halo over the pillow he's resting on, and he's curled up peacefully under the edge of the blanket minho hadn't been using. 

he looks--young. young as he is, for once in his life. 

jisung is a force to be reckoned with, and minho finds it hard to remember, sometimes, that he's only just turned nineteen. that he's still a teenager, barely an adult--that he's still a kid. a whole two years younger than minho, but experienced so much further beyond his years. 

it's unsettling, sometimes, to see the amount jisung has accomplished at such a young age. unsettling when he hears the amount of sleep jisung gets a night, unsettling that jisung thinks sleeping for four hours straight is a luxury. 

like this, jisung looks peaceful. the crease that remains constantly between his brows has smoothed out, and he's relaxed, no tense lines of stress marking his cheeks and no anxious hands running through his hair. minho wishes, sometimes, that even awake jisung could be more like this. 

obviously with the way things go these days the younger can't afford that, but it's wishful thinking on minho's part. maybe on all of their parts. 

minho reaches out gently and cards his fingers through jisung's hair. he's sleeping by the window, in the crevice between the wall and minho, so the sun's spraying a wintry rose glow over his cheeks. his hair's getting long again, and it's tangling at the edges, probably due to trim it soon. jisung hates having long hair, says it's a pain in the neck to deal with and almost always leaves stages frustrated because his hair kept falling in his eyes. 

minho thinks long hair suits him, though, inconvenient as it may be. 

jisung's lower lip is bitten raw, and minho feels a surge of guilt, sympathy, maybe even worry when he thinks about what might have caused it. late nights in the studio, stressing over deadlines, frustration at having messed up choreo once again. 

jisung's memory isn't bad. it's just that his brain has so much going on at once that it seems to filter out some things that may just be important. they always come back to him, but in the moment it seems like jisung thinks it's the biggest deal in the world. minho likes to make fun of him, that jisung writes the lyrics yet is the first to forget them. 

but when he actually thinks about it, he thinks jisung just might have a pass of leeway. maybe he can forgive him. 

it's early, and minho doesn't have to be awake for a whole hour, and jisung's fast asleep next to him, lax and completely pliant under his touch. 

minho runs a thumb under jisung's eye, tracing the dip of his cheekbones and running a forefinger against his jawline. he's lost weight, minho realizes, whether on purpose or simply because of forgotten meals and long hours at the gym. jisung has always been the smallest of the group--height-wise, not exactly, but in all other aspects. 

he's always had a slight frame, slow to gain muscle and even slower to gain weight. 

it's not often that minho gets to see jisung like this. he's so quick to fend for himself that minho barely even gets time to look at the issue before jisung's analyzing it and coming up with fourteen solutions on how they can make it better. jisung looks vulnerable, almost, like he should. like a nineteen year old boy should. 

minho uses the tip of his fingernail to trace a constellation on jisung's cheek. it's hollowing out, holding shadows of the morning when it had been so full just a few months earlier. he's right here, but somehow minho always thinks he's so far away from them, so unreachable. jisung is almost unreal at times, slipping through their fingers like stardust and disappearing when the morning comes. 

stardust is hard to hold on to, minho thinks, and so is jisung. 

it's too early. the pink is vanishing, and a sheen of golden is starting to spread across the sky, swallowing the last of the cotton candy clouds. 

jisung is pretty. he's pretty in a way that so many people fail to see, and each one snaps minho's heart a little further. jisung pretends like the comments he hears from time to time don't affect him, brushes them off with a smile and a shrug, lets chan know that 'hey, people will say what they wanna say'. 

but on days when minho catches jisung looking in the mirror a few seconds too long, or curling into himself when he sits next to hyunjin, or keeping his mask on when he very well isn't required to, his heart breaks a tiny bit further. 

jisung doesn't deserve that. jisung is nineteen and bearing the burden of a whole corrupt world on his shoulders, and the last thing he deserves is people trying to weigh him down even further. and they try, minho tries, to take some of that burden off of him, but jisung would carry every galaxy until his back broke just to keep someone else from suffering too. 

jisung is too good for the evil in the world, minho thinks, and there's nothing he can do about it but be there for him. 

minho picks up jisung's hand softly and intertwines their fingers. 

it's too bad, that early in the morning is the only time minho will ever get to see jisung with nothing to worry about. that when he wakes up he'll be driving about a million new things, bouncing from one to the next like it doesn't matter at all. 

but knowing the stars twinkle at night is different than stargazing. 

minho exhales quietly and squeezes jisung's hand. the younger shifts once, twice, and then his eyes blink open slowly, weighed down with sleep and dreams. 

"hi," minho whispers, a crooked smile of sorts he's pretty sure hanging on his lips. 

jisung blinks three times before he squeezes minho's hand unconsciously. 

"time?" 

his voice is deep, laced with fatigue and misuse, and the word comes out slurred and barely understandable, but minho figures it out anyhow. 

it's seven-thirty. 

"it's you-need-to-go-back-to-sleep-again- o'clock," minho grins gently, ruffling jisung's hair with his free hand. 

jisung makes a noble attempt to get out another sentence, but he's already falling asleep again. "but," he mumbles, "practice." 

"not for a while," minho answers quietly, rubbing jisung's shoulder. "go back to sleep, ji." 

and jisung does just that, dozing off again with his lips parted the slightest bit. 

minho draws in a deep breath and lets it out again before he lies back down as well, pulling jisung closer to him. 

if this is all the time jisung can get, minho will take it. 

it's not enough, he thinks, far, far from it, but it'll have to do for now. maybe tomorrow minho will remind jisung that he doesn't need to spend that extra hour at the studio, maybe he can take a break for a few minutes between songs. 

for now, though, minho will let jisung sleep. 

it's early, and there's a half-hour before either of them have to be up again.

but today, maybe minho doesn't mind all too much. for jisung, maybe minho will make an exception. 

**Author's Note:**

> no idea what i just did. word vomit at 1 am, anyone?


End file.
